the soil, yet it was covered by luxuriant waist-high broad-leaved plants. The region seemed harmless, so they strode straight through the center. Then all three travelers felt a sudden and almost uncontrollable call of nature. They had to scatter, barely getting separated in time to perform.
These were very practical plants, Bink abruptly realized. Their spells compelled passing animals to deposit nutritious fluids and solids on the soil, greatly promoting plant growth. Fertilizer magic!
Farther along, one animal neither fled their approach nor acted hostile. This was a knee-high, snuffling quadruped with a greatly extended snout. Trent drew his sword as it ambled toward them, but Fanchon stopped him. 'I recognize that one,' she said. 'It's a magic-sniffer.'
'It smells by magic?' Bink asked.
'It smells magic,' she said. 'We used to use one on my folks' farm, to sniff out magic herbs and things. The stronger the magic, the more it reacts. But it's harmless.'
'What does it feed on' Trent asked, keeping his hand on his sword.
'Magic berries. Other magic doesn't seem to affect it one way or the other; it is just curious. It doesn't differentiate by type of spell, just intensity.'
They stood and watched. Fanchon was nearest to the sniffer, so it approached her first. It snorted, making a flutelike sound. 'See, I have some magic; it likes me,' she said.
What magic? Bink wondered. She had never shown any talent, and never actually told him what she could do. There was still too much he did not know about her.
Satisfied, the sniffer moved on to Trent. This time its reaction was much stronger; it danced around, emitting a medley of notes. 'Sure enough,' Trent said, with a certain justified pride. 'It knows a Magician when it smells one.'
Then it came to Bink-and frisked almost as much as it had for Trent. 'So much for perception,' Bink said, laughing with embarrassment.
But Trent did not laugh. 'It believes you are almost as strong a magician as I am,' he said, his fingers tapping his sword with unconscious significance. Then he caught himself, and seemed to be at ease again.
'I wish I were,' Bink said. 'But I was banished for lack of magic.' Yet the Magician Humfrey had told him he had very strong magic that could not be brought out. Now his curiosity and frustration were increased by this happenstance. What kind of a talent could he have that hid itself so determinedly-or was it hidden by some outside spell?
They trudged on. They cut poles with which to poke the ground ahead for invisible barriers and pitfalls and other suspiciously unsuspect aspects of the wild. This made progress slow-but they dared not hurry. Actually, they had no reason to hurry; their only purposes were concealment and survival.
Food turned out to be no problem. They did not trust the various fruit and candy trees they saw; some might be magic, and serve the interests of their hosts rather than the interests of the consumers, though they looked similar to crop trees. But Trent merely turned a hostile thistle tree into a luxuriant multifruit tree, and they feasted on apples, pears, bananas, blackberries, and tomatoes. It reminded Bink how great was the power of a true Magician, for Trent's talent really embraced that of food conjuration as a mere subtalent. Properly exploited, the reach of his magic was enormous.
But they were still heading into the wilderness, not out of it. Illusions became bolder, more persistent, and harder to penetrate. There were more sounds, louder, more ominous. Now and then the ground shuddered, and there were great not-too-distant bellowings. Trees leaned toward them, leaves twitching.
'I think,' Fanchon said, 'we have not begun to appreciate the potency of this forest. Its whole innocuous permeability may have been merely to encourage us to get more deeply in.'
Bink, looking nervously about, agreed. 'We picked the safest-seeming route. Maybe that's where we went wrong. We should have taken the most threatening one.'
'And gotten consumed by a tangle tree,' Fanchon said.
'Let's try going back,' Bink suggested. Seeing their doubt, he added: 'Just to test.'
They tried it. Almost immediately the forest darkened and tightened. More trees appeared, blocking the way they had come; were they illusions, or had they been invisible before? Bink was reminded of the one-way path he had walked from the Good Magician's castle, but this was more ominous. These were not nice trees; they were gnarled colossi bearing thorns and twitching vines. Branches crisscrossed one another, leaves sprouting to form new barriers even as the trio watched. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
'No doubt about it,' Trent said. 'We failed to see the forest for the trees. I could transform any in our direct path, but if some started firing thorns at us we would be in trouble regardless.'
'Even if we wanted to go that way,' Fanchon said, looking west. 'We'd never have time to retrace it all through that resistance. Not before night.'
Night-that was the worst time for hostile magic. 'But the alternative is to go the way it wants us to go,' Bink said, alarmed. 'That may be easy now, but it surely is not our best choice.'
'Perhaps the wilderness does not know us well enough,' Trent said with a grim smile. 'I do feel competent to handle most threats, so long as someone watches behind me and stands guard as I sleep.'
Bink thought of the Magician's powers of magic and swordplay, and had to agree. The forest might be one giant spider web-but that spider might become a gnat, unexpectedly. 'Maybe we should gamble that we can handle it,' Bink said. 'At least we'll find out what it is.' For the first time, he was glad to have the Evil Magician along.
'Yes, there is always that,' Fanchon agreed sourly.
Now that they had made the decision, progress became easier. The threatenings of the forest remained, but they assumed the aspect of background warnings. As dusk came, the way opened out into a clearing, within which stood an old, run-down stone fortress.
'Oh, no!' Fanchon exclaimed. 'Not a haunted castle!'
